Engagement Ring

Bulging blue eyes stare
As my silver diamonds shimmer like stars
Into his large crusty hands I am placed
We drive to a little house passing the ocean
I am looked at from time to time
Open, shut, open, shut, open
Gone
I fall out of my black box into the harsh outdoors
My side aches after a wheel runs over me
Crunching into the gravel there I lay
Left
But not forgotten
Suddenly I see a figure
I am gently picked up
Considered curiously
Then dusted off and polished
He places me back into my silky surroundings
We drive to a restaurant
They eat an expensive steak dinner
As I wait anxiously in a moist slice of tiramisu
A man in a black and white suit carries me out
She cuts a big piece of cake
I see the world before being shoved into her slimy mouth
I feel her wet tongue until
Pop
Returning to the world I see
Blue eyes on one knee
As I slide onto my new home

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”